Meg Cabot - Haunted

"Right," Paul said, observing from my expression apparently that I didn't have a real straightforward answer for him. "Nobody told you. But what if I said I knew. What if I told you I'd found something - something that dated back to the first days of actual written communication - that exactly described mediators, though that wasn't what we were called back then, and their real purpose, not to mention techniques?"

I continued to blink at him. He sounded so ... well, convincing. And he certainly looked sincere.

"If you really had something like that," I said hesitantly, "I guess I'd say . . . show me."

"Fine," Paul said, looking pleased. "Come over to my place after school today, and I will."

I was up and out of my chair so fast, I practically tipped it over.

"No," I said, gathering up my books and clutching them in front of my wildly beating heart as if both to hide and protect it. 'No way"

Paul regarded me from where he sat, not seeming too surprised by my reaction.

"Hmmm," he said. "I thought as much. You want to know but not enough to risk your reputation."

"It isn't my reputation I'm worried about," I informed him, managing to make my tone more acid than shaken. "It's my life. You tried to kill me once, remember?"

I said these words a little too loudly and noticed several people glance at me curiously over the tops of the computer monitors.

Paul, however, just looked bored.

"Not that again," he said. "Listen, Suze, I told you. . . . Well, I guess it doesn't matter what I told you. You're going to believe what you want to believe. But, seriously, you could have gotten out of there any time you wanted to."

"But Jesse couldn't have," I hissed at him. "Could he? Thanks to you."

"Well," Paul said with an uncomfortable shrug. "No. Not Jesse. But, really, Suze, don't you think you're overreacting? I mean, what's the big deal? The guy's already dead - "

"You," I said, my trembling voice giving the statement somewhat iffy conviction, "are a pig."

Then I started to stride away. I say started to because I didn't get very far before Paul's calm voice stopped me.

"Uh, Suze," Paul said. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

I turned my head to glare at him. "Oh, you mean, did I forget to tell you not to speak to me again? Yes."

"No," Paul said with a wry smile. "Aren't those your shoes under there?" He pointed down at my Jimmy Choos, without which I'd been about to stalk from the room. Like Sister Ernestine wouldn't have had too big a coronary if she'd caught me wandering around school in my bare feet.

"Oh," I said, mad that my dramatic exit had been spoiled. "Yeah." I went back to my desk so I could jam my feet into my mules.

"Before you go, Cinderella," Paul said, still smiling, "you might also want to take this." He held out my trig homework. I could tell with a single glance that he'd finished it, neatly and, I could only assume, correctly.

"Thanks," I said, taking the notebook from him, feeling more and more sheepish with every passing second. I mean, why, exactly, was I always flying off the handle with this guy? Yeah, he'd tried to kill me - and Jesse - once. At least, I thought he had. But he kept saying I was wrong. What if I was wrong? What if Paul wasn't the monster I'd always thought him? What if he was . . .

What if he was just like me?

"About this Craig guy," Paul added.

"Paul." I sank down into the chair beside him. I had felt the gaze of Mrs. Tarentino, the teacher assigned to supervise the computer lab, boring into me. Popping in and out of your chair in the lab is not smiled upon, unless you are going back and forth from the printer.

But that wasn't the only reason I sat down again. I'll admit that. I was curious, too. Curious over what he'd say next. And that curiosity was almost stronger than my fear.

"Seriously," I said. "Thanks. But I do not need your help."

"I think you do," Paul said. "What's this Craig guy want, anyway?"

"He wants what all ghosts want," I said tiredly. "To be alive again."

"Well, of course," Paul said. "I mean, what's he want besides that?"

"I don't know yet," I said with a shrug. "He's got this thing with his little brother . . . thinks he should have been the one to die, not him. Jesse thinks - " I stopped talking, suddenly aware that Jesse was the last person I wanted to bring up in front of Paul.

Paul looked only politely interested, however. "Jesse thinks what?"

It was, I saw, too late to keep Jesse out of it. I sighed and said, "Jesse thinks Craig's going to try to kill his brother. You know. Out of revenge."

"Which, will, of course," Paul said, not looking in the least surprised, "get him exactly nowhere. When will they ever learn? Now, if he wanted to be his brother, that would be a different story."

" Be his brother?" I looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"You know," Paul said with a shrug. "Soul transference. Take over his brother's body."

This was a little too much for a Tuesday morning. I mean, I had already had a pretty crummy night's sleep thanks to this guy. Then, to hear something like this come out of his mouth . . . well, let's just say I was not at my sharpest, so what happened next can hardly be described as my fault.

" Take over his brother's body ?" I echoed. I had lowered my books until they rested in my lap. Now I reached out and gripped the arms of my computer chair, my nails sinking into the cheap foam-padded armrests. "What are you talking about?"

One of Paul's dark eyebrows hiked up. "Doesn't sound familiar, eh? What has the good father been teaching you, I wonder? Not much, from the sound of things."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "How can someone take over someone else's body?"

"I told you," Paul said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head, "that there was a lot you didn't know about being a mediator. And a lot more that I could teach you, if you'd just give me the chance."

I stared at him. I really had no idea what he was talking about with this body-swapping thing. It sounded like something from the Sci-Fi channel. And I wasn't sure if Paul was just feeding me a line, something, anything, to get me to do what he wanted.

But what if he wasn't? What if there was seriously a way to -

I wanted to know. My God, I wanted to know more than I had ever wanted anything in my life.

"All right," I said, feeling the sweat that had broken out beneath my palms, making the chair's armrests slick with moisture. But I didn't care. My heart was in my throat, and still I didn't care. "All right. I'll come over to your place after school. But only if you'll tell me about. . . about that."

Something flashed through Paul's blue eyes. Just a gleam, and I saw it only for a moment before it was gone again. It was something animallike, almost feral. I couldn't say just what, exactly, it had been.

All I knew was that the next minute, Paul was smiling at me - smiling, not grinning.

"Fine," he said. "Ill pick you up by the main gate at three. Be there on time, or I'll leave without you."

8

I wasn't, of course, going to meet him. I mean, despite ample evidence to the contrary, I am not stupid. I have, in the past, met various people at various appointed times and found myself, hours later, either tied to a chair, thrust into a parallel dimension, forced to don one-piece swimsuits, or being otherwise cruelly mistreated. I was not going to meet Paul Slater after school. I was so not.

And then I did anyway.

Well, what else was I supposed to do? The lure was just too great. I mean, actual documented evidence about mediators? Something about people being able to take over other peoples bodies? All the nightmares about long, fog-enshrouded hallways in the world were not going to keep me from finding out the truth at last about what I was and what I could do. I had spent too many years wondering just that to allow an opportunity like this to slip from my fingers. I had never, unlike Father Dominic, been able merely to accept the cards I'd been dealt. ... I wanted to know why they'd been dealt to me and how. I had to know.